Unspoken
by Shobogan
Summary: Ten drabbles. Ten ways Barbara Gordon shows her love without saying the words.                     Warnings: Alcoholism, funerals.


I

It would be easier to just accept the way her father is. To simply look down at the spiral that will take him away from her, as sure as screeching tires and twisting steel took her mother, her aunt, her belief in forever.

She flinches away from his shouts, but still returns them. She hates the stench of beer on his breath, but stays close enough to smell it. She hurls painful truths at him, everything she doesn't want to say and he doesn't want to hear.

It always hurts, but maybe it keeps him alive, just a little longer.

II

They don't adopt her right away. Uncle Jim doesn't want her to think he's replacing his brother, and Aunt Barbara doesn't want to force her into anything, and she's grieving and wary and they have a little boy already.

As time goes on, worry fades and affection grows, as she laughs more and cries less.

After her first birthday in Gotham – a small party with all her favourite foods and a pile of new books – she skips up the stairs and tosses a casual, cheerful goodbye over her shoulder.

"Night, Mom. Night, Dad."

They file the papers in the morning.

III

She's known their identities for some time now, of course. Batman and Bruce Wayne coming down with Swamp Fever at the same time confirmed it handily.

She could taunt them with the knowledge. ("Men's work? Is that so, Dickie?") She could tell her father, if he doesn't know already. ("Maybe you could make him come to the front door when he visits.")

She never says a word.

She often wonders if Batman and Robin – Bruce and Dick – do the same thing. If they know who Batgirl really is and keep their silence.

She decides it's all right if they do.

IV

Barbara always saw Robin as a boy. A brave, resourceful boy, to be sure – but a child nonetheless, Batman's junior partner. She trusted him, but protected him just as much. It never felt right to put the burden of her safety on his shoulders, so strong and still so small.

Then Dick Grayson shed the short pants, and forged a new identity, and suddenly he was a man.

It felt strange, at first, flying through the stars with Nightwing, but soon enough it's the most natural thing in the world.

Sometimes, when she falls, she will let him catch her.

V

She thinks, at first, that she'll only work with him the one night. That she'll watch over him, and study him, and that will be that.

But he is infuriating and passionate and reckless and brave, and he carries so much pain and so much hope, and she knows she can't turn away from this boy.

This boy who makes her scowl and laugh and shout; this boy who worries her half to death and warms her heart. Her comrade, her student, her little bird.

In the weeks after she's shot, she only leaves the house once, to say goodbye.

VI

She doesn't want to grow close to another Robin, at first; at the time, she doesn't want to grow close to most anyone.

Tim makes that difficult.

He's quietly brilliant and timidly strong and, when you know him just enough, a cheeky little brat. He understands her technobabble, and he knows how to play iWizards and Warriors/i, and once he even beats her at chess.

She tells stories of Dick in short pants, of Jason with fish hooks, of a happier Bruce.

His gaze is never pitying when she speaks of Batgirl.

He's the first Bat inside the Clock tower.

VII

When Oracle first contacts Black Canary, the wayward vigilante hears what almost everyone does: toneless, modulated words that could just as easily come from a computer program.

As their partnership continues, however, the distance closes between them. It wasn't meant to, and it won't stop. It's terrifying and exhilarating, like swinging from a spire for the first time.

They bicker and tease and comfort; they are comrades and partners and friends.

Laughter isn't meant to be synthesised.

The next time Oracle speaks to Dinah, resting in the sunlight on the other side of the world, it is with Barbara's voice.

IIX

Barbara knows she isn't the best teacher. She's frustrated too easily; she has trouble simplifying what has always been simple.

Cassandra isn't the best student, either. She'd much rather be training or sparring or fighting.

Still, Barbara keeps trying. Today they're even advancing a bit, if slowly, when she notices that Cass is looking at her, and not the pages in front of her. Barbara cocks an inquiring eyebrow.

"You're…stubborn. Why?"

Her eyes widen slightly, and the truest answer tumbles from her mind and shies from her lips.

Cass smiles softly. "Oh."

They make more progress than usual, that day.

IX

She is hard on the girl, as hard as she ever was on herself, remembering all the while that it hadn't been enough.

It's not difficult to see similarities to the woman she used to be. The grin as she fights and jokes and flies; the eternal glint in her eyes, be it playful or determined.

For goodness' sake, the girl had enough nerve to manipulate Black Canary, and enough wit to do it successfully.

So when Barbara lectures her, it isn't because she thinks Spoiler doesn't have what it takes.

No. She just doesn't want her to lose it.

X

She's the last to approach Sarah's grave, at the funeral. There aren't any flowers to give, not in the winter of No Man's Land. No, they're Gotham again, but it hardly seems to matter, not when she's staring into the coffin of the woman who was never quite her mother.

Barbara rarely leaves flowers, anyway. They feel trite, impersonal. Last time she left a sapphire for her mother, a watch for her father, a batarang for Jason.

Instead, she whispers what she never could before, as her tears freeze in the chill wind.

"I'm glad he found you again, Mom."


End file.
